Shadow of Freedom

“You might want to inform the local senior officer that I have complete tactical readouts on his vessels,” Zavala continued. “Including the fact that one of them is down a beta node in her forward impeller ring. I’m perfectly aware of their locations, and also of the three destroyers hiding on the far side of Cinnamon’s moon. I’m not sure why you bothered to hide those, but I’m certain you had a reason that made sense to you, at any rate. To use your own turn of phrase, ‘be advised’ that I’m as well aware of the Solarian forces currently deployed in the Saltash System as I am of the SLN’s demonstrated proclivity for firing on unprepared vessels of sovereign star nations with no warning. In light of that demonstrated proclivity, please inform your local commander that I entertain no doubt of my ability to engage and destroy all of his units if I should be forced to do so. And since you’ve seen fit to threaten my command with attack by ‘all means’ at your disposal, I have no option but to consider your warships to be hostile units. As such, I require that they stand down immediately. They will power down their impeller nodes and shut down all tracking and targeting systems, and their personnel will immediately evacuate to the surface of Cinnamon. And I should point out, Governor, that my sensor resolution of your vessels is more than adequate to determine their status and whether or not the life pods used to evacuate their crews are actually occupied. Assuming my requirements are met, your vessels will be left unmolested and you may…reclaim them following our withdrawal from the star system.”

“And precisely what do you intend to do if this pipe dream of yours fails to come to fruition?” Dueñas demanded furiously.

“If your crews haven’t abandoned ship within the next twenty-seven minutes,” Zavala said with a flat, implacable calm worse than any shouted threats, “I will construe that as an indication of hostile intent, and I will open fire. The decision is yours, Governor. In either case, my ships will be in orbit around Cinnamon in approximately one and a half hours. Whether or not any of your warships are still intact at that time is up to you. Good day.”

Dueñas was still staring at the display in disbelief when it went suddenly blank.

Chapter Twelve

“I didn’t realize the Commodore had such a command of diplomatic language, Ma’am,” Alvin Tallman observed from his position in Tristram’s Auxiliary Control over his private com link to Naomi Kaplan.

“He does have a way with words, doesn’t he?” Kaplan replied. “I’ve always admired a well-turned phrase, and I was impressed by his subtlety, too. That comment about Tango Three’s beta node was a nice touch, too. But at least nobody on the other side’s going to be able to get away with claiming he didn’t give them clear warning, now are they?”

“They may not get away with it, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try to, Skipper,” Tallman pointed out.

“That much was a given going in. Personally, I’m with the Commodore. Better to be hanged for hexapuma than a pussycat. Besides,” Kaplan smiled coldly, “we tried it their way at New Tuscany. Now they can try it our way.”

* * *

“He’s got to be crazy, Ma’am,” Tucker Kiernan told Oxana Dubroskaya flatly. “Five light cruisers against four battlecruisers? They’ve got at most—what? Maybe eight tubes per broadside? Well, we’ve got twenty-eight per broadside!”

“Captain Kiernan has a point, Admiral,” Captain Maksymilian Johnson, SLNS Vanquisher’s commanding officer, said. “On the other hand, and not wanting to sound alarmist,” the flag captain continued, “if they’ve got the kind of range advantage some of the wilder reports from New Tuscany indicate, they may be planning on opening fire from well beyond our range.”

“Are you suggesting a batch of light cruisers is going to open fire at forty million kilometers, Sir?” Captain Kelvin Diadoro, Dubroskaya’s operations officer, sounded a little more incredulous than he probably should have speaking to someone with Johnson’s seniority, but the vice admiral couldn’t really blame him.

“I’m not necessarily suggesting anything of the sort, Kelvin,” Johnson replied with a touch of frost. “I would point out that forty million klicks does comport reasonably well with the claimed range at New Tuscany, but whether or not those claims have any relationship with reality is more than I’m prepared to say. What I am suggesting, however, is that this Zavala’s clearly suggesting he has a significant range advantage and he’s planning to use of it. And if it should happen he really does have that kind of range, it doesn’t matter how many missile tubes we have and how many he has, since we won’t be able to put fire on him without our birds going ballistic twenty or thirty million kilometers before they even reach him, at which point even a light cruiser’s counter missiles and point defense will eat them for lunch.”